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Salta la linda, meaning Salta the beuatiful. Named this I suppose because of the lovely colonial buildings and plazas and the way it is surrounded by the lush foothills of the Andes. Salta is part of what was the Southern most reaches of the expansionist Inca Empire about 500 years ago, before it was toppled by the Spanish. It is also home to some of the most interesting archealogical museams in Argentina and a base for tours into the northern villages reaching into Bolivia. I stayed there three days. Originally I was there to get my bearings and check out the churches, plazas and museams but I soon met some nice Argentinians at my hostel and hung out with them, drinking mate, eating empanadas and drinking beer. Gabrielle and Jose were two 21 year old friends from different sides of Argentina who had met typically playing computer games online and struck up a friendship. They decided to meet for the first time in Salta, Argentina and do a bit of a roadtrip in their summer holidays. They were friendly and I struck up a conversation in Spanish about mate and my travels and they were impressed by my Spanish and thought
I was funny so we hung out for a few days along with a few other Argentineans. I was just happy I could actually make friends using my second language! Most of the Argentinians found it funny that I had my own mate vase and regularly drank it as I was a foregner and most are not acustomed to the strong taste. But to tell the truth, out of all the people I met I made the most Argentinian friends and felt most at home with their culture. I even look quite Argentinan and was often mistaken for one. The second most comfortable culture is the Brazilian culture for their openess and friendliness but it's a little different from the typically somewhat reserved kiwi culture I must admit.
I also met a Dutch girl from my dorm room who I went on a tour of the villages and sites in Northern Argentina with. It was a 12 hour tour in Spanish in which I got to try chewing coca leaves for the first time (not so tasty) and I was well tired by the end - after seeing the hill of 7 colours and about 4 other little villages.
They were relativly primitive, most with a plaza and a church and LOTS of souveniers to sell. I didn't buy any as I was going to Bolivia and they were all imported from Bolivia anyway. The people in the north were more indigenous looking than the people in the rest of Argentina and many were Aymara or migrants fro nearby Bolivia and Peru. I had some interesting thoughts while travelling and noticing that the main form of income for these people in the villages was tourism like this. What would happen if the tourist route changed or the road had a slip and people couldn't get tho these villages? Would the people in them starve? Sure the tourism industry was a little developed but it still didn't look like the towns had schools or a lot of options for money making - being so far out and in an arid environment. It made me think is tourism actually good for development, or in other words does tourism lead to sustainable development? How can tourism be developed in ways which produces sustainable options for development - cultural, economic, educational etc? An idea for future study perhaps...I had also seen towns like
bonito in Brasil which was entirely based on tourism and wondered what would happen if tourists didn't come? Is it useful to be that dependent on tourism for a source of money and furthermore the culture is changed if people learn English to cater to tourists instead of the local language and culture.
From Salta I was escorted by my friend Jose to a midnight bus and bode goodbye with a kiss on the cheek and a 'ciao linda'. We arrived at 6am on the border and I had mixed emotions - excited and a little scared at the thought I was finally arriving in Bolivia - a country I had been trying for the last 3 weeks to enter and building up a big picture of it from talking to other travellers. Bolivia and my planned development work there was one of the main reasons I had come to South America. I shared a taxi to the boarder with some other young Argentinean boys and chatted with them at the line for immigration. There I also met Sebastyian from Buenos Aires. Upon crossing the boarder I walked with the boys up and down looking for the train that
our 8 year old guide
Inca ruins close to Cochabamba, Bolivia was supposed to take us further up the line, only to find it was decomissioned. Typical Bolivia. The boys had to catch the next bus north while I was negotiating my very first Bolivian bathroom experience which consisted of waiting a long time to use a shitty loo with no paper and a bucket of water you had to pour down it afterwards. Also there was no way you could wash your hands after with no soap or running water. Already I yerned for Argentina. Downstairs Seb was waiting but had bad news. We had missed the bus north to Tupiza. Well we could hitch I suggested instead of waiting 6 hours in this shitty border town. We agreed and walked further down the road. After 30 minutes of lugging our packs a truck stopped and indicated we jump in the back - an empty wooden box with two Bolivians already sitting there using thier bags as cushions. We said 'hola' and got a grunt in reply. We bumped along the dusty almost-road, peeking out now and then at the amazingly arid landscape, catus and hills. I was sleep-deprived, on the back of a dodgy truck, with a new friend in a new country (which had a completly different notion of what an acceptable toilet was) but I was having fun!
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Dave
non-member comment
go girl
hey dave from dunedin here, it's great reading your story's. Bolivia sounds like it's going to be a adventure that's for sure. I can't wait to read your next blog, Dave